Day two

A tiny water droplet found on my walk today.

10 am

Thanksgiving Address- is a way to stop,think about, and thank the things that support our life in this universe. Make a few notes that express your gratitude for all of the people in your life.

This morning I am thankful for meeting such amazing friends up North. Relationships with others is the key to life and happiness. I am just really happy this morning to be able to finally say I am completely comfortable with living away from home, in Vermont, and finally feeling a sense of home away from home. I am so very thankful to be able to share my Thursdays with such amazing and inspiring people and children. I am also thankful to attend a University that I feel encourages passion instead of grades, and am happy to go to class every week knowing people want to be there and learn.

The second day started with a story called "New Brunswick Gray Fox". It talked about how people often search for wilderness, in quite places far off in the forest but in fact wilderness is all around at all times.

The challenge today is called looking for life. To look for life throughout my day : birds, trees, mammals, insects,plants, etc.

!0:15 PM Night Reflection

A time to calm the mind and the senses.

"Find in your heart things about the earth that you are really grateful for"

Today I am grateful for every little rain drop that slid down my jacket and onto the soil. Every drop reminded me of the replenishing nature of spring, seeping into the soil to nourish and revive all living things.

Map the signs of new life found today.

Did your trigger work? are you happy with the one you chose?

My trigger today was bird sounds. I think it really allowed me to tune into my sense and even more into all the wonderful sounds I was hearing walking to and from campus. Its amazing to tune out the cars flying by and actually be able to notice so many more sounds around you. Usually I would walk to class with headphones in but today I found I didn't even miss the music because I was actually listening to what was going on around me.

Did you find/see new signs of life that you didn't notice before?

Today I was noticing many of the birds that settle in the trees just outside my back yard. In the morning when I woke up around 7 am it was almost if those birds were my natural alarm clock. I counted about 5 different calls ( I think). I also noticed the trees on campus were starting to bloom and tried to determine how many different species I walked by.

Did you find yourself moving more slowly today?

I felt like the day moved slowly and calmly. It seemed that along with my sense my productivity also increased. Instead of putting in my headphones to go where ever I walked, I walked slowly trying to really listen and notice. I had no feelings of being rushed through out the day and enjoyed allowing myself to take the time to stop, listen, pause and reflect. This is only the second day of using a "trigger" to call myself into consciousness and I can only hope it will become easier and easier to do with such a busy lifestyle.

I was really inspired by the morning story about finding nature all around you. Growing up outside a Philadelphia suburb I always felt that I wasn't actually in nature. I spent most of my days outside but never really thought of it as being surrounded by the wild. The story about the gray fox tracks and shifting ones awareness to everything around you really opened up my eyes to see that nature is just outside my door.